Conventional nonvolatile memories tend to require a large amount of energy for suitable operation. The energy consumed during backup and restore operations can be factors that lead to this large energy requirement. During backup and restore operations, high static current, long backup times to survive power supply variations, and/or long restore times to cover supply recovery ramp can lead to a high total energy per backup and restore operation. Conventional nonvolatile memories can also be plagued with limited speed, limited endurance, and/or limited use of dynamic energy or power.
Not only can the effects of such limitations result in wasted energy consumption, these and other limitations exhibited by conventional nonvolatile memories may hinder implementation of energy saving techniques. This inability to implement energy saving techniques can be exacerbated during frequent data access operations when the conventional nonvolatile memory is used as a memory cell during computation and/or logic switching.
Examples of conventional nonvolatile memories and logic switching devices can be appreciated from U.S. Patent Publication No. 2001/0011743, U.S. Patent Publication No. 2004/0041186, U.S. Patent Publication No. 2009/0190430, U.S. Patent Publication No. 2011/0147807, U.S. Patent Publication No. 2012/0014169, and U.S. Patent Publication No. 2015/0089293.